J. Donald Everitt
’28

Published in the July 11, 2012, issue

Don, the last member of our class, died March 23, 2012, in Tucson, Ariz.

Born in Lewisburg, Pa., the son of a Presbyterian minister, he graduated from Mercersburg Academy. At Princeton he majored in English, then taught the same subject at schools in Saltsburg, Pa.; Colora, Md.; and Woodbury, N.J. He earned a master’s degree in English from Bucknell University.

In his 25th-reunion book, Don wrote that he was assistant headmaster of Southern Arizona School for Boys (now Fenster School) in Tucson, where he taught English and Latin and was academic adviser and registrar. He was the “unofficial” Saturday hiking coach and trail-building boss. He and his wife, the former Mary Virginia Laning (whom he married in 1932), moved to Tucson in 1937.

Don served on the Princeton Schools and Scholarship Committee, belonged to the Tucson Club, and was on the board of deacons of the Presbyterian Church.

In the 1950s he was a summer camp counselor for the Tucson Boys Chorus, and in the 1960s he worked for the Educational Testing Service as a reader of College Board English exams. Don retired from teaching in 1972. In the 1970s he worked in the University of Arizona registrar’s office.

Predeceased by Mary in 1970, Don is survived by his second wife, Erla McCracken Everitt; his daughter, Charity, and her husband, Allen; his son, Benjamin ’65, and wife Cynthia; Erla’s son, Hugh; her daughter, Sara, and husband Tom; several grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.

PAW's online memorial repository currently contains the full text of all memorials published since 1989. To find a memorial published in PAW before this time period, please check the Mudd Library Archives.